Goddess: Awakening
by Haley Mitchell
Summary: Awakening is a prequel to the Goddess main story: A young girl with an unique mind, a boy with a growing evil inside and a young man lost in despair all meet and in that meeting each will begin their journey to their ultimate destiny. The story of these characters continues in the Goddess: Descention series. Rated T for Violence. Please Read & Review.
1. Chapter 1

_This story is based within the world and upon the characters created by the imaginative minds of those at DC Comics and I have no legal claim to them. I also do not claim rights to the poetry used to inspire each chapter. _

_The original characters in this work were however created by me and I do claim the rights to them. _

_Any similarities to names and descriptions of places or people alive or dead is purely coincidental._

_Haley Mitchell_

* * *

**Goddess**

_Prequel:_

**_Awakening:_**

_Part One_

_Do not go gentle into that good night,_

_Old age should burn and rave at close of day;_

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _

_ Dylan Thomas_

_Gotham City, a lifetime ago…_

It was a summer day but it was raining, a dismal day. The steady downpour seemed to wash away the color and the world turned grey. She leaned against the glass of the large living-room window in the small house, head tilted down, resting against the cool surface of the windowpane. Her breath fogged the glass and clouded the child's face, but she could still see, she could see everything...

She gazed past her quiet neighborhood, with it's green lawns, picket fences and colorful flowerbeds: Colorless now, as if the life was being drained away with the rain and flowed unhindered into the gutters. Her eyes swept past all that because the only thing that mattered at that moment was the house across the street.

On the surface she seemed normal, like every other child her age; perhaps six or seven years old. She wore blue denim overalls over a pink T-shirt. She had a mop of dark curly hair pulled into two pig-tails just behind her tiny ears. Her large almond eyes, hazel usually but grey today, stared out the window.

The dolls that she had been playing with were left on the living-room floor. Her game had been forgotten when a benign fantasy had given way to an unnatural reality. A terrible feeling of dread overcame her and as if in a trance she had walked to the window and began her silent vigil. Unblinking, never wavering, she could see everything and she wasn't normal.

With her grey eyes she watched the house across the street. She knew who lived there, a kind elderly couple with raspberry bushes in their back yard. On brighter days they would give the girl a small basket to collect those berries and smiling they left her to play in their yard. It was one of the few places in the world she was allowed to go on her own: Trees that begged climbing, sheds to explore, nooks and crannies to hide in, all the tools the girl needed to create her own little world of wonder and exploration. A world apart and all her own but now the world turned grey and those days would never come again. Her young mind knew this as she watched the house.

The girl wasn't like other children. She had what some called a gift, an ability that made her different and she hated it. The difference isolated her, forced her into a life of seclusion because she knew things about other people, things she shouldn't be able to know.

Her young mind was a beacon, a magnet for the emotions of those around her. She was an island surrounded by waves of sensation: A relentless and unyielding sea that surrounded her, pummelled her young mind from all sides. Before she understood them, before she had begun to learn how to separate them from her 'self', they would envelop her, overpower her, control her. They would leave her in a state of absolute confusion because all the feelings she was experiencing, all that emotional bombardment had no point of reference for her. What she felt in her mind were emotions that were not her own. They were those of every mind around her. They would bring her to tears of utter sadness, uncontrollable fits of giggling, or to lash out in a violent rage and a myriad of other reactions, sometimes one by one and too often, many at once. When it subsided it left the child gasping and exhausted.

It did not take long for the girl's parents to realize their child needed help, specialized help. Thus she was no stranger to labs where men in white coats looked at her with obsessive curiosity and a fear they took great pains not to show on their faces. They wired her to machines that scanned her brain as they tested the limits of her abilities: They tested the range, scope and her control of her talent. And they drugged her, perhaps trying to find a way in which to control her, all those things they did and they never really helped her. Much of her young life was spent in such places.

From them the girl learned many new words like thought-transference, neuroimaging, psychological symbiosis, anomalous cognition and meta-human but the words they mostly used in her presence was 'gift' or 'talent'. She didn't think of it that way; to her it was an obstacle that forced her into a life of chaos and confusion, to her parents it was a burden one so young should not have to carry alone and they did their best to help their child cope with her… gift.

She didn't know how it came to be but finally she was allowed to leave the labs and the doctors. She knew her parents had something to do with it but there was more to it that they were not telling her, and she didn't fully understand why they had had to leave everything behind and move away.

All she did know was that all those tests and experiments and the drugs they gave her made her condition worse. She found it harder and harder to concentrate on anything. Even her own mother whose bond with the girl was the strongest would become drowned out by all the others. At no time or place would they relent, she was bombarded constantly by the emotions of every soul around her. It was a terrible internal battle the little girl fought endlessly and it was a battle she was losing.

The family moved around for months trying to find a haven for the child, somewhere, anywhere where she could find some peace but when they drove across the bridge into Gotham City she instantly hated it. She could feel an undercurrent of fear pulse beneath this city's surface. It prickled at her mind like a thousand tiny needles. There was a sense of dread here that she could not describe. As if something terrible was about to happen; Gotham City was a city of fear. But like every darkened tunnel there was light, and here amidst the waves of unease there was an oasis where she found a modicum of safety.

When her distraught parents first brought her to them deep in the heart of Gotham's Chinatown she was like a frightened bird, wide eyed and constantly cringing from shadows only she could see and hear. She would pummel her own head with her tiny fists trying to make the shadowy voices go away but they never did. She ate little and rarely slept. She was thin and gaunt and her eyes were haunted. She was wasting away.

She never did find out how her parents found them, or knew that they would be the only hope that could save her from the daily torture her 'talent' put her through. They were Senji and Misheru, an elderly Japanese couple and together they saved the young girl's life.

They were tireless in their dedication in helping the child and worked with her for weeks through focused techniques in meditation until finally the girl learned to dampen her ability and on some levels, control it. She learned to push it back, to not allow it to dominate so they were nothing more than what the girl described as 'feather touches' against her mind. She had to learn to keep her 'self' separate from the minds that surrounded her every waking moment.

After months of constant moving the small family settled in Gotham so that she could be close to Senji and Misheru and their daily lessons. The old Japanese couple became family to the child, they became Sobu and Sofu: Grandmother and Grandfather. And when the girl and her parents moved into this small house on the edge of Gotham she finally felt that she was home. She was happier now than she could ever remember being before. She felt safe here, the world was a dangerous and chaotic place and here in this quiet neighborhood, armed with her new-found control she was safely isolated behind walls both external and internal.

On this dismal day however, her carefully constructed walls crumbled under the weight of a mind so different from what she had ever experienced before. Today her mind was touched; not by the fleeting brush of a feather, but by the brutally slow kiss of a razor's edge.

The child had no defences against it, she had never came into contact with a mind such as this. It was alien to her, like the surface of a dead world floating in space. Barren, lifeless and full of hard jagged rocks that threatened violent injury at every turn. That alien mind was inside the house across the street… Inside with that kind and gentle couple. She felt them too, blissfully unaware of the danger they were in.

That sinister presence stunned the child, overwhelmed her into a dazed immobility. She couldn't move or cry out so she did the only thing left to her. She tried to reach them mentally. The only person in the world she had ever contacted directly that way was her mother. She concentrated on them, focused her thoughts, sent them a warning: GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! She felt a rise of apprehension from them, but they didn't leave. She gathered her will to send another warning but that dark presence interfered, like an oily slick that polluted clear water. She had opened her mind but was pulled into to a darkness that threatened to drown her.

She had made a connection with a corrupted mind. Saturated with a darkness that went deeper than she had thought possible. With growing horror she could feel a cold hunger at the heart of it's misshapen brain. She felt it's bloodlust rise, it's eager anticipation of it's intended atrocities. Frightened, she tried to pull her mind back but that darkness held her immobile. She felt dazed and sickened, held prisoner by that disfigured mind. Gasping, she could do nothing but watch the house through the rain and feel a rising sense of dread as that dark and twisted alien mind stalked the gentle, unknowing couple in their own home.

She wanted to warn them, she wanted to stop it but she couldn't move. She was stunned, enthralled, imprisoned. Like a scared rabbit, in the presence of a hunting predator she stood immobile. She could only watch the house across the street and cry out a voiceless warning as she struggled against the horror of so ruthless a mind. Later she would come to learn a word that described what she was experiencing on that grey rainy day… Evil. Today she saw evil and evil saw her.

It was only for a second, a moment suspended in time. There was movement in the house across the street; it began as a blur of white across the large front window, a phantom, a malevolent spirit glided into her view, then it paused and turned. It wasn't a ghost, it lived and breathed, but that didn't make it human. It was a man but the girl did not recognize it as such for she saw not only it's body but it's mind; and if it had any humanity left it was buried far beyond reach. It was a dark and twisted mind, remorseless, emotionally impotent but full of a deadly single-minded purpose. When it stopped at the window it turned to gaze out across the drenched street. It's eyes met the girl's and it seemed to hold her for that terribly long moment as firmly as if it held her by the throat, then it smiled. She couldn't cry out , she couldn't breathe, she could only gaze back at that evil smile with it's even white teeth and dark empty eyes. Silently, she did scream as it looked away with that unholy grin, focused now on what it came there to do.

She could not see what came next but she could feel it, and that was far worse. Terror so powerful it shook her from her immobility and brutality so violent she reeled away from the window and fell over her forgotten dolls in her attempt to escape from it. Finally free from that mental prison, she began to cry as she crawled away from the window, away from that once welcoming house that now loomed so large and threatening in her window. She felt every emotion that emanated from those inside. That sweet elderly couple who gave her lemonade and cookies when she went there to visit were now made to suffer an ordeal much worse than simple death. Dazed she could only lay on the floor, her cries became screams of agony as each new wave of horrid emotion engulfed her. She felt their pain, hot and piercing and her small body doubled over with their anguish, her tiny heart pounded in her chest with their panic and her own. Though, beneath all that terror her little girl mind felt something else, something she didn't fully understand, was incapable of understanding but even more frightening… she felt that twisted mind, and she felt it's joy.

It revelled in It's cruelty, It was powerful, It was invincible. It fed off the horror in It's victim's eyes like a ravening animal. Every injury It inflicted caused It to quiver in sadistic glee. It rejoiced in their agony and their terror, the very terror that sent the little girl into a shrieking unmitigated panic.

A world away in the kitchen of the little girl's small home a young woman called to her daughter as she washed the breakfast dishes. She was tall and slender and moved with the grace of a dancer. Her long honey-blond hair was tied back but a few strands came loose and fell across her flawless face. Her demure beauty looked out of place in the kitchen of the small house in a quiet and isolated neighborhood. She absently tucked the stray lock behind her ear and called to her daughter again but her voice faltered and the soapy dish she was holding fell to the floor and shattered. The young mother ran out of the kitchen knowing something was horribly wrong even before she heard her daughter's cries.

Mother and child shared more than a body during pregnancy, much more, they shared their minds. While the child sensed the emotions of everyone around her, her mother could feel only the emotions of her child, and at this moment her child was more than frightened, she was frantic. It took only moments for the mother to understand the focus of what had sent her daughter into such a panic; the house across the street. She tried to calm the child the only way she knew how, the same way she had calmed her when she had these emotional episodes before. The woman took her daughter's head between her hands and forced the child to look into her eyes and soothed her not with words but with thoughts.

" _I'm here baby, I'm here. You must be calm now. Show me what is happening, be calm and show me.''_

The child's wild cries lessened to great choking sobs as she tried desperately to concentrate. Vague images assaulted the woman's mind, a kaleidoscope of pain and fear and malevolence. The images started to coalesce into a story the woman could understand, then abruptly the images stopped, replaced by something else, something far more horrifying…A great shrieking wail assaulted the woman's mind as her child cried out in a tortured agonizing scream. The woman cried out herself then she was thrust from her daughter's mind. The child squirmed and cried in her arms, the woman tried to re-establish the connection but to her horror all she felt was…

Emptiness. The child went limp in her arms, her tear-streaked face went slack, her grey eyes stared sightlessly. She gently shook the child in her arms, called her name with her outer voice as well as her inner one. The girl did not respond and the mother felt the child in her arms grow colder. The woman cried out her child's name again with fear and dread and strove to re-connect the bond she had with her daughter since she first felt her move inside her, but she just wasn't there. The woman was stunned, she had suddenly lost something she'd had for so long that its absence left a gaping hole in her world, it was like she had spontaneously lost her hearing, or sense of touch. Anxiously the woman checked the child's pulse, listened for her heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief, it was slow but still there, then she reached for the phone.

The child was closer to death than her mother realized. The girl's mind was suddenly torn from her body by a violent wind. Spinning, whirling and shrieking with the voices of countless lost souls. The noise was deafening, she could neither hear her mother crying out her name, nor feel her comforting presence within her mind. If her world was turning grey before, now it was fading to complete darkness. She was being drawn into a great black vortex. It beckoned to her, a promise of peace beyond the shrieking veil and she was drawn to it.

She could feel two souls with her, felt them released from their bodily prison, free from pain and anguish. But in that moment of release the child felt a storm of sensation. Every memory the murdered couple ever had and every emotion those memories stirred assaulted the girl's mind. In the blink of an eye she experienced everything that had ever happened in their lives; every joy and every sorrow, every turning point and every regret of their long, long lives. The child relived it all with them including their shocking and brutal demise. In that moment of their deaths the child knew them as they knew themselves; every aspect of their being was thrust at the child's mind, an explosion of emotion. To the dying couple it was a catharsis, a liberation of their lives before they could move on, to the child it was a storm of emotion and memory that battered the girl with such rapid intensity she felt her mind in danger of being torn apart. Her body, lying on the floor before her mother began to convulse as every neuron in her young brain fired up with the chaotic emotional activity.

The woman was almost as frantic as the girl had been. On her knees beside the child in the throes of a violent seizure, the woman's voice betrayed her panic as she cried into the phone to the emergency operator trying to explain the crisis that was happening without knowing herself the nature of the events unfolding. All she knew was that something terrible was happening in the house across the street, something so frightening that it caused her sensitive child to first lapse into unconsciousness and now convulse in a dreadful seizure. The woman held her daughter so that she wouldn't hurt herself as the great spasms rocked and jolted the girl's small body. Somehow the woman still held the phone in her hand and she looked up, searching her troubled mind for the right words to explain to the operator that she urgently needed help and why, then she saw it. A spectre moving past the window of the house across the street, not white, not anymore; now it was soaked in crimson.

Engulfed within the storm in her mind the child could still feel them, the tortured couple. She felt them moving toward the vortex, their liberation from this world almost complete. They progressed through the veil with enormous relief but scarred by the fashion of their passing. The mental barrage abated as they passed through the great and terrible portal and the girl's mind quieted. Now she could feel it again, the pull of the vast inky black vortex and it was much stronger. The dark spinning maelstrom grew larger as it enveloped the souls that had just expired as if it had gained power from them. The pull the little girl felt grew even more compelling. Curiously she wasn't afraid but she knew in her heart that this was death.

It was familiar somehow, this great spinning vortex, like something the girl had experienced before, perhaps in a dream. She felt almost elated after the turmoil of the last few moments, she was free of chaotic emotion, her mind was clear amidst the howling wind. She was alone and not, at the same time, like most of her young life. She had always yearned to be alone, solitary in thought without the interference of others. Emotions all her own, and no one else. She had learned to build walls around her 'self' for protection, she lived in isolation, surrounded only by the familiar. Alone and not. Now she had finally felt it: Oneness, her sense of self, uncluttered, she had never before experienced such clarity, such joy. Yet there were others near, like whispers in the dark, barely heard under the screaming wind. She could sense them, but it wasn't the same; they didn't intrude on her mind, they didn't interfere with her own emotions. She felt them but she retained her own sense of 'self'. They were moved by the current of the wind, and she moved with them, toward the center of the vast blackness that was the portal, the twisting vortex. Quickly at first, she wanted to go, oh so desperately she wanted to lose herself inside, become one with the innumerable voices. But her progress slowed. She was hindered and she couldn't understand why.

The woman blinked and the image in the window of the house across the street was gone. The child's fit had subsided, and still holding the unconscious girl the woman rose and stepped closer to the window. The phone in her hand forgotten, she peered at the house through the grey rainy haze. She had begun to wonder if she had seen anything at all until she saw the front door of the house across the street open. She gasped when she saw it; a man-shaped thing standing in her neighbor's doorway. It wore a white jumpsuit that was stained with an appalling splatter of deep crimson that no amount of rain could wash away. In it's left hand it held something; she couldn't tell exactly what but she could guess. It dripped great wet drops of scarlet that mingled pinkish with the steady downpour. When her eyes reached it's face she felt a chill that shook her to the very core of her being and like her daughter before, she stood frozen. It was a maniacal face, twisted into a frenzied grin, all blood spattered and panting. The woman was locked by the implications of that cold and demented face, of the putrid mind behind it. Of what it did that drove her daughter into unconsciousness, what it was capable of, and what it intended to do now. It stood there for a time, it's head tilted as if pondering it's next actions. It's smile grew suddenly wider as it's eyes locked onto a new target inside a small house across the street. It took a step forward, then another, and another, it's grotesque smile growing broader with each step as it approached the woman's home.

The dark churning maelstrom was fading, the child could feel it. She could taste the harmony that she knew existed beyond and she wanted it to take her there but something was holding her back. She sensed something anchoring her to this world of pain and sorrow, of fear but also of hope and love and family. An invisible bond, as fragile as her flesh but as strong as her soul… life. The little girl still lived. Then all at once she realized, this screaming, swirling vortex did not come for her. It beckoned yes, but not to her, to the others and they were gone, it had what it came for. She could not know what it held for her; would she be forever lost in a void? a limbo between this world and the next? Her young mind could barely fathom such a place yet she became afraid. She was not ready. Instinctively she could not let the purpose of her life be denied because she was drawn into a portal that was not meant for her. Consciously, all the little girl knew was… she wanted to live.

The woman screamed into the phone, pleading for help as she watched the bloody apparition stalking toward her and her unconscious daughter. Still holding the child, she dropped the phone and ran, fearing help would come too late. Protecting her defenceless child was the only thing in her mind and she fervently tried to mentally revive her daughter as she retreated from the monster that approached but the child was still not responding. The woman ran into the bedroom and quickly laid her child on the bed then hurried to the closet where her husband kept his gun. She didn't like guns, but her husband had insisted she know how to use one. It was necessary, he'd said and finally she had agreed. Now more than ever she was grateful for his persistence. The woman frantically pulled boxes and items off the shelf of her closet looking for the one that contained her only hope of protecting her daughter. She silently cursed herself for not keeping the weapon where she could find it more readily when she suddenly jumped at an ominous noise… Somewhere in the house she heard the sound of breaking glass.

The girl was still surrounded in darkness but the maelstrom, the wind, the noise, it was all gone now and the child felt a pull in a different direction. Like coming home after a long absence her mind and body reunited with relief but also regret. The freedom, that sense of 'oneness' was gone. All the emotion she had kept at bay once more came flooding in and the most prominent was her mother's fear and anxiety. Slightly more distant but much more alarming she felt another presence; twisted and malevolent, and It was coming closer.

The girl opened her eyes and sat up. She felt exhausted, the emotional turmoil and the seizure affected both mind and body. All she wanted to do was curl up and cry herself to sleep but her mother's fear spurred her into action. She angrily wiped the tears from her face with a resolution that far surpassed her age. The child tentatively reached out to that thing, that creature that stalked them. It was close, she could feel it, a putrid stinking presence now in her own home.

The woman looked up and saw her daughter awake. The child could see the relief in her mother's eyes, feel her anxiety. Fear, both her mother's and her own, mingled and was so strong she could almost taste it, a coppery bile at the back of her throat. She felt sick with it. Mother and child didn't need to speak to convey the deadly situation they had found themselves in, they both understood the danger. Silently the woman turned her attention back to the box of ammunition for the gun she found and with shaking fingers was trying to open it and load what she thought was her only hope in protecting her child and herself. Wordlessly the child put her mother's urgent thought of flight aside, crawled off the bed and purposefully walked to the bedroom door. Bullets scattered across the carpeted floor when the frantic woman dropped the box to reach for her daughter, but the child calmly walked out of the room.

The girl walked down the hall toward the living-room, where it all started. She could see her dolls where she left them in front of the large window, a lifetime ago. Then she saw a shadow darken the brightly clad dolls. At the end of the hallway she stepped into the living-room and came face to face with It. The child's mind calmly took in everything. It's wet footprints that tracked from the front doorway, the broken glass from the window in the door. It stood where she had when she first sensed it's malevolence, looking out the large window at the house across the street. It turned toward her and smiled.

Grey light from the window illuminated the scene before her and she focused her attention on It. It was tall, she thought, taller than her father. It's soaked white jumpsuit almost completely covered in bright red. In it's left hand it held it's weapon; a foldable long bladed straight-razor, the kind men used to shave with on those old T.V. shows she'd seen. The blade, washed clean by the rain shined in the grey light. The gloved hand that held it was rinsed of blood as well, but not entirely clean. Those hands would never be clean… she could see the tell-tale redness, sticky between it's fingers and where the razor's handle rested in it's palm. Pink drops oozed and fell to the floor. In it's other hand it held one of her dolls. It's brightly colored dress stained now by the blood the rain failed to cleanse. The doll hung limply from the claw-like hand that clenched it, as if this creature's bloody touch had killed it.

Slowly she looked up at it , searching for something in it's features that showed it's malevolence: Short brown hair, soaked from the downpour trickled slow rivulets of water down it's face. But that too could not completely wash the blood spatter across the tanned skin that covered it's skull. She studied it's face, trying to detect any outward signs of the repulsive mind behind it; a tall forehead over a narrow nose, wide cheek bones and under that a thin lipped mouth; a mouth that showed starkly white teeth in a leering grin as it looked down at the small child.

She gazed up into it's eyes. Soulless, dark, mud-brown eyes, but they shined almost as much as the blade it carried. She could feel it's anticipation, she had felt it before and she knew what was coming. It said something to her then, an inquiry about why she didn't seem to be afraid but the question barely registered and she didn't answer it. She felt her mother behind her frantically trying to reach her, to warn her to get away from It, but the girl, for the first time in her life, purposely blocked her mother from her mind. She could not allow her mother to follow where she intended to go; her mother could not understand and wouldn't be able help anyway. With her mother's silent pleas muffled and only a faint rumble of distant emotions like thunder from far away, all safely behind her mental barrier, the child could focus all her attention on the creature that towered above her.

Still loading bullets into the clip of her husband's handgun with shaking hands the woman rushed out into the hallway after her child. In the living-room she found them, face to face. Her young daughter and the malevolent stranger. It looked down at the defenceless child, the hand holding the straight-razor rising, preparing to strike. The woman frantically threw a thought at the child to move, to get away so she could shoot but to her horror the child blocked her out and the stranger sank to it's knees before the girl. The woman could not fire the weapon for fear of hitting her daughter. Panic-stricken the woman could only hold the gun before her with shaking hands and hope for a clear shot.

The girl was afraid but she buried it, a calmer and colder 'self' prevailed now. Instinctively the child detached her own emotions and those of her mother behind her, she had to or she would have been repulsed by this diseased mind, the fear and repugnance of it would overpower her as it had before. Fear was what It wanted to see in her face and that was the last thing she would show It. There was something inside this little girl, something different, a sense of determination, a sense of purpose, a strength she did not realize she had. She couldn't let anything stop what she felt she had to do, not only to save her own life, and her mother's but anyone else this creature would stalk in it's future. What she was about to do she did because she sensed deep with in her very soul that it was the right thing to do.

The child's eyes locked with it, but she held It immobile this time, as she delved deep into it's diseased mind. All the hideous aspects of this creature's intent were still there, like before. It's mind was devoid of empathy, it was a pitiless, emotionless cavity that it had to fill with the anguish of others in order to feel something, anything and It was elated by the prospect of more bloodshed. It was with this twisted and broken mind that the child strove to bind with. It was not telepathy, no direct thoughts, that's not how her ability worked, at least not with anyone besides her own mother. It was an empathic gift or curse, and dealt only with feelings and emotions. What the child sought was the tentative bond she had inadvertently formed with this monster when she first sensed it. She focused all her will on it and it grew stronger.

It was on it's knees before her now, they were eye to eye. "What are you doing!" would be the last coherent sentence it would ever speak and it went unanswered. The child, with an incalculable amount of concentration searched deep inside the mind of the monster and located that emptiness she sensed before, that emotionless hole she discovered went all the way back to it's earliest childhood. She found the place where it's compassion, it's humanity expired so long ago. She saw how it died and it wasn't sudden, it was a long cruel, painful death. It was not a monster in the beginning, it was just a child, like her. A boy that was taught how to become a monster, a silent witness to years of brutality. For a fleeting moment she pitied that lost boy as she waded though the emotional wreckage that was the birth place of this fiend. She felt his fear in the beginning, the torment and his inability to prevent the horror that surrounded him. How he struggled to survive his hostile and insane world.

She saw how the monster was born, she saw how he embraced the madness and became one with it. And with that acceptance of evil the darkness inside grew, that emptiness grew until nothing else remained. Love and compassion were alien concepts, never in his life did he remember experiencing them. There was no reaching this creature now through sympathy or mercy, it lost the capacity for such things long ago. Pain, fear, cruelty, these were the things it understood now, it fed off them.

Although it was a twisted and evil mind it was still only a mundane human mind, bereft of gifts like hers and that was the child's only weapon. She would not remember how exactly she did it, or even how it occurred to her that she could. Perhaps it was the inky black maelstrom and the power only those in death witness, but she had seen it, returned from it and brought something of it back with her. Perhaps it was the dire need to rid the world of the enormous sense of wrongness that surrounded this creature. Perhaps it was just the child herself and a natural progression of the ability she had. She loved that old couple that this monster just ruthlessly murdered, and she loved her mother and would not let it hurt her and she had a purpose, all life did and she would not let this creature, take it, not now, not ever.

In her mind she summoned up the memories of the vortex, the wailing shrieking wind and the death of the couple she experienced. She gathered up all the pain and agony, all the fear and panic she and the murdered couple shared. All that emotion, still so poignant and fresh in her mind, almost overwhelmed her again. Tears fell from her eyes as she considered how appalling what she was about to do really was, but her concentration and determination never wavered as she found that boy deep inside the monster. That boy with the darkened soul, innocent and not. She subdued the surge of pity she felt rise momentarily and ruthlessly, like a spear she thrust all that emotion at the deepest part of the broken mind of the killer before her. The shrieking wind again assaulted her mind as well as the twisted one she had bonded with and with it the tortured death throes of the people this monster had just killed. Wave after wave of raw, grating, shredded, agonized emotion. The child was ruthless as she slashed and ravaged it's mind. If pain and fear was all it truly understood then that was what she gave it. Relentlessly she flung all the pain, all the anguish it had inflicted back at it. The psychopath dropped it's only weapon and the doll as it's hands instinctively moved to protect it's broken, breaking brain, as if the flesh of it's hands could somehow shield it from the mental barrage. The wailing wind in their minds was joined by the shrieking voice of a tortured killer.

The girl's mother stared incredulous at the scene before her. The gun, useless in her shaking hands, lowered as she watched the blood soaked maniac drop his weapon to hold his head and scream in terrible agony. Shielded from her daughter's mind the woman could not guess the terrible and awesome power her daughter had suddenly unleashed. As she approached she looked at her daughter with new and almost fearful eyes. Tears streaked the child's face, but she was not crying, there was a sadness in her eyes, but a determined resolve also. The woman tried to get a sense of what was happening but her gentle mental probe only confused her. She felt a heaviness, like a weight that strove to push her down, like the killer, to her knees and a muted sense of unfettered misery, like the memory of a deep and profound sorrow. Whatever the child was doing it was intense and while she was doing it she was also able to shield her mother from it. A flicker of fear touched the woman, not of the screaming killer, but of her own daughter.

The child's mental assault was brutal, unrelenting and even cruel. The boy that was, would never be again. Deep in it's psyche she realized all there was left was the monster. The young tortured soul was merely a shadow, an echo of what never was, but it was enough. She used it mercilessly as a target for her brutal attack. She used the torment the boy that was had experienced so long ago and intensified it. Used the sense of helplessness he once felt, the internal torture he lived through and would turn outward against the world. She turned it back on itself. She had to believe there would be no rehabilitation for this twisted soul, that there would be no returning from the darkness. She had to believe that because if she relented, even for a second, her attack would fail and it would rise to kill again. She knew she could not allow this creature it's freedom. She forced him and herself to relive the brutality of the deaths he had caused, and she grew angry.

She used that anger. Sweat beaded her face, mingled with her tears and she gritted her teeth with the tremendous effort as she focused her attack and intensified the onslaught. Never again would it to hunt and kill to feed it's hunger for blood. Never again would it stalk through the world looking for new victims. Never again would it's mind be free to think and act on it's dark desires. Never again, the little girl thought, will it hurt anyone!

With an agonized shriek the killer fell backward onto the carpet writhing in spasms of torment. Like herself only a few minutes before, he twisted and shuddered as his brain was overloaded with all the emotional turmoil she threw at it. He might have begged for mercy, if his mind was able to convey the thought into words, but it was in no condition to do so.

And the girl continued her barrage.

She stripped the monster naked, tore it's power from it. The fearsome predator was gone, replaced by a quivering, insane collection of flesh and bone and misery.

And still the girl continued the barrage.

He tried to crawl away from his tormentor. Tears and spittle and blood that was not his own smeared the carpet as he clawed and struggled in his desperation.

And still she continued her barrage.

Drooling and whimpering he lay on the floor, fetal amidst colorful scattered dolls.

And still she continued the barrage.

His mind in tatters, he lay there panting and sobbing. His brain barely able to function enough to keep his body breathing.

And still she continued the barrage.

She stood over the twitching form of the former killer and sustained the attack until consciousness fled them both. Then, like the monster that was, she sank to the floor and let the darkness take her.

She awoke hearing voices and sirens. Her eyes saw red and blue flashing lights through the window, stark and too bright against the grey. She felt like she was seeing the world through a haze, not really a part of it, an outsider looking in at a dismal unreality. She was cradled in her mother's arms. A policeman knelt beside them and was gently coaxing the gun from her mothers hand. She looked around the living-room of her small house and saw it was filled with policemen all pointing their guns pointlessly at the unconscious psychopath on the floor. They put handcuffs on the limp form and rolled it over. Some of them gasped at the blood on it's clothes and looked for a wound. They didn't find one.

The woman pointed to the house across the street and several policemen left to investigate. As her mother spoke to the police the child glanced out of the window as the policemen crossed the soaked street and disappeared into the house beyond. Two reappeared seconds later. Ashen faced, one doubled over and retched into a flower bed, the other rushed back to his colleagues to report a grisly crime.

When the ambulances arrived they finally hauled the blood drenched killer out of her house, twitching and jabbering incoherently. He would always be here, the child thought. His taint and her own would always be here, in her house, in her memory. The evil he did and the evil she did to stop it would always haunt her. Still held by her mother the child pondered these murky thoughts as she watched the police work. Cameras flashing, recording the scene, they walked through her home and with gloved hands they picked up the razor from the floor and put it into a clear bag. They did the same with her doll. Her blood soaked doll, another casualty of a severed innocence. The child wanted to cry then, but the tears wouldn't come. She was drained, like the world, all grey and colorless, and empty. Her child's mind wanted her doll back, clean and new but she knew that could never be. The blood on it would never wash away, it seeped deep inside, a darkness had stained it forever. She sorrowed for the loss.

They led her and her mother outside to a waiting police car. Suddenly her father was there. "Daddy!" She cried, and the tears finally came as she saw the concern on his face. He took her in his arms and hugged her and his wife fiercely. The little family stood in the rain and embraced each other, drew strength from each other and cried in relief.

Then she saw, over her father's shoulder, as they carried out the dead from the house across the street. White sheets covered them. An obscene redness soaking through. They were people she cared about, reduced to blood soaked sheets. People she knew as profoundly as if she lived with them all their long lives only because she shared in their deaths. The reality of the events of that day came crashing in on her then as she watched them roll out the bodies of that gentle couple. She cried harder and her father tried to shield her from the sight, but it was too late. It was burned into her memory just as their lives were. Just as their deaths were. The same death she used as a weapon against their killer. That act too was seared into her memory. The brutality of it, the unrelenting cruelty she didn't know she was capable of. Her tears were unstoppable now. She cried for the sweet gentle couple, so full of love. She cried in relief that she and her mother survived, and she cried for the loss of something in herself that was irretrievable: A child's innocence.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Goddess**

_Prequel_

**_Awakening_**

_Part Two_

_Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,_

_And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,_

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight_

_Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,_

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

_Dylan Thomas_

_Gotham City_

When the boy heard a soft crunch he stopped what he was doing and watched as the small grey mouse shuddered, squirmed and convulsed. The crunch, only he and the small animal he held immobile could hear, was the bone of it's tiny skull as it was punctured by the boy's steady but firm pressure on a long needle he had inserted through the mouse's ear. After pushing it in just a little bit more he let go of the needle leaving it still lodged inside the animal's diminutive brain and watched with rapt attention. He leaned in, his nose almost touching the thin shiny metal barb as it moved with the animal's agony and he heard the weak snuffing sounds the creature made and he watched it's small furry body rise and fall with it's last breaths.

It was a slow little death and the boy relished every moment. Blood welled up out of the animal's ear but only a single drop, like a tear, fell to the boy's desk. He liked the blood too, it was still warm and fresh, he could smell it's coppery tang. He carefully dipped a finger into the spot of blood and traced an outline around the still twitching creature then he rested two fingers lightly upon the soft grey fur and felt the animal's tiny heart beat it's last. The boy could feel his own heart quicken as a sense of euphoria rose within him. Nothing else in the world had ever made him feel this way; this elated, this complete. His was a world where he was at his parent's mercy, where freedom to do as he chose was denied him but this, this moment, this final moment of life of this tiny dying creature… In this he had ultimate dominion.

But, like anything wondrous, even this tiny miracle, it came at a cost. It was his joy and his alone and that was fine with him, he had no desire to share this with anyone. The real price was keeping his secret joy to himself, of hiding it from everyone around him. Pretending that the normal childhood joys sufficed; ice-cream, toys, amusement parks, his parent's pride and love. These were empty things to the boy, they did not stir his emotions, they did not make him happy, they did not fulfill him like this secret joy did.

But his secret had to be kept and he had to be careful, his parents might stop buying him pets if they found out what was really happening to them. He removed the long pin from the animal's brain and cleaned it and all the tell-tale blood from the scene with a tissue that he would flush later. He had considered flushing the small body as well and telling his mother that the mouse had escaped but he didn't want to do that. It would make the experience incomplete, would make it anti-climatic. He wanted it to be found, he wanted them all to wonder what had happened, he wanted them all to flounder in their ignorance. Was it something in the air that was killing his pets? Was it lead in the paint? Was it a virus? Secretly he would smile and laugh at them, basking in the truth only he knew.

Once though, he was almost caught. His old nanny, Mrs. Tully found him about to begin his procedure; it was a hamster that time, and he had been holding it down when she walked in, the boy barely had time to hide the needle but the look on her face told him that perhaps he hadn't been hiding his activities as well as he had thought. He became much more cautious after that but she had retired soon after the incident anyway. His parents hadn't found anyone to replace her yet and he hoped they wouldn't, he was getting too old for a nanny now and a new face around the place would make it harder to keep his surreptitious activities unnoticed.

His secret ritual completed, the boy was ready to face the day and his parents. They would be waiting for him, he knew that but he didn't hurry, he never hurried. Most boys his age ran everywhere they went but not him. Every step down the staircase was a measured segment of the journey that was this young boy's life. Every moment, every thought, and action was calculated and deliberate. He noticed everything and catalogued it for future reference, like the flower arrangement on the staircase's landing for instance: Every morning his mother would take a walk in the garden and pick a fresh bouquet but he noticed as he descended the stairs that the vase still contained yesterdays flowers which meant that something was amiss.

At the bottom of the stairs he could hear his parents arguing, again. They used to pretend that they didn't, thinking it disturbed their only son to see them fighting but all it really did was amuse him. When the occasion arose he would secretly listen, storing the information for later. Manipulating his family was almost as fun as his little secret joy. When he stopped to listen he realized that this morning's argument concerned his Uncle Luther, his mother's brother, which was nothing new. The last time they argued about Luther was just after his nanny retired, father didn't like him and from the argument it seemed that he suspected Luther had something to do with her retirement but mother always defended him and that infuriated father.

Of his extended family he liked Luther the best. Luther was older than the boy's mother by several years and he had recently learned that Luther and his sister had different fathers. Apparently it was quite the scandal but the boy couldn't understand why that would be. The boy found his uncle interesting and had began to look into his past but the boy could find nothing concerning Luther's young life. There were no pictures of him before he was a teenager and his mother had no memory of Luther's father because their mother had already left him and remarried, at least that is what she said when the boy had put on an innocent face and asked her. The boy had also found out that Luther's father had died shortly after being released from prison. How he died and more importantly, why he was in prison in the first place was still unknown to the boy. He had asked his mother about it and she had told him he was too young for such things but the boy would not be stonewalled. On one of Luther's brief visit's the boy made a point to ask his Uncle about his father and Luther had smiled and simply said, 'The old bastard got what he deserved.' and that made the boy smile too. To the boy Luther was real, not pretend like everyone else in his family. Uncle Luther was blunt and mean and scowled all the time. He looked at everyone as if they disgusted him, like insects… The boy found that refreshing.

The last time Uncle Luther visited was just after Mrs. Tully quit. The boy's parents thought it would have affected him somehow and the boy wasn't sure how to play it. In the end he pretended melancholy because that was what he thought they expected, and that was the best he could do, he had never been able to cry on demand, he just didn't know how. The woman had been his nanny for as long as he could remember but he felt no real feelings for her, she was just there, like the furniture, hardly noticed unless needed and the boy never felt like he needed her. Oh she was kind and grandmotherly, always smiling except that last time when she almost found out his secret joy. That last time he saw her she wasn't smiling and there was a strange look on her face, almost fearful. The boy didn't understand why but he liked it. She was afraid of him and that gave him something he never really had before, it made him feel something he had never before felt; power. But before he could quantify it, before he could find a way to recreate it she was gone, quit, retired, never to be seen again. Oh well, life goes on.

Apparently Mrs. Tully's departure caused a stir, she told his parents something before she left but he couldn't figure out what that was. She never really caught him doing anything seriously wrong. The boy became concerned and would mull over the last weeks he had spent with his nanny and could think of nothing disparaging that she could have told his parents other than that last time he saw her. He worried over it for days until Uncle Luther came to visit.

Uncle Luther was tall and strong and had a presence about him. The boy could never really figure it out what it was about his uncle that made him so much bigger than everyone else in the boy's world. He could see no family resemblance with his mother, she was fair haired and blue eyed but unlike his sister, Luther had brown hair and dark brown eyes that sometimes seemed black and menacing. His voice was deep and resonate and while blunt and harsh with everyone else, Luther was always even-tempered but somewhat cryptic in his talks with his young nephew.

The last time the boy saw his Uncle Luther was when he came to visit shortly after Mrs. Tully quit and after a brief talk with his sister he came up to the boy's room carrying a brown paper bag. The boy was sitting on his bed, still worried over what his former nanny had told his parents about him. His father had been even more distant and his mother seemed to think he needed her more now and she was almost smothering him with her new-found motherhood. The boy was in a dismal mood.

After only the briefest of knocks Luther opened the door and stepped into the boy's room. As he walked toward the boy he glanced at the empty cage on the boy's desk. The boy saw that knowing look and wondered if he should have forestalled his secret joy a few more days and let the hamster live. But the boy didn't like change and the hamster succumbed the day after Mrs. Tully quit. Luther sat down on the bed next to the boy and without a word gave him the paper bag. The boy opened the bag and when he looked up into his uncle's dark brown eyes Luther smiled and winked at him and the boy could not help but smile too. Inside the bag was a small grey mouse. As the boy rose to put the mouse in the empty cage Luther's deep voice rasped from behind him, "That one seems strong enough to last a little longer than the others I should think." The boy was startled, Uncle Luther knows! The boy knew his secret should be kept only to himself but there was something right about his Uncle Luther knowing his secret too. The boy quickly got over the initial shock and when he turned around to face his uncle he was smiling. Luther motioned to the boy to sit beside him and dutifully the boy obeyed.

For a few long moments they both watched the mouse explore it's new home, it's prison, it's miniature death-row. Finally the boy tore his eyes away and looked up at his uncle to find that Luther had been staring down at him with his strange dark eyes. "We are different, you and me boy. We are different than most other people, you know that don't you." After the boy nodded Luther turned his gaze back to the cage and continued. "You've done an adequate job of hiding it so far but you're getting older and it will only get harder." The boy looked up again but Luther was still watching the mouse. "You see what I see, You see how insignificant they are, how worthless." Luther turned his gaze back on his nephew, "You are too young now to really understand how special you are boy, but understand this… There are more of them than there are of you and you have to be smarter than them to survive in their world." Luther then looked out the boy's window. "My world is shrinking boy, but your's will only get bigger but only if you're smart." He looked back down at the boy, "Keep your secrets hidden. Don't take any chances, that was my mistake." Luther looked down at his large tanned hands, "Your mother will always stand by you, she's special too, not like us but still special, you might not see that now but you will, keep her safe and she will always be there for you." The boy became slightly alarmed, he didn't like where this conversation seemed to be going, it was almost like Uncle Luther was saying goodbye. His uncle seemed almost sad and then in a heartbeat his mood changed, he took the boys chin in his hand a forced him to look into his dark eyes, "It doesn't matter how special you are boy, they will hunt you down if they see what you really are. Remember that, remember that and you'll be alright." With that he let the boy go, got up and left. The boy hadn't seen him since. He didn't understand everything his uncle told him that day but he vowed that he would always remember.

No one had seen or heard from his uncle since his last visit and the boy had been wondering where he disappeared to. Now, this morning his parents were arguing about Luther and the boy decided to stay hidden and listen, he might learn something important.

They were both in the parlor and his father was angry and went on about some kind of scandal; "Virginia, I will not allow this family's name to be dragged through the mud because of your insane brother!"

The boys mother became angry, more angry than he'd ever seen before, "He is not insane! How can you say that? He took care of me after mother got sick, he's all the family I have!"

"What about me? What about your son? What are we?"

"But…"

"No! I'll not hear another word, we will go to the funeral and pay our respects and I absolutely forbid you to go to that place, do you understand?" Father marched toward the door picking up his briefcase and coat along the way and the boy had to scramble to avoid being seen. His father turned back after he reached the door his son was only a second ago peeking through and announced to his wife, "I expect you both to be ready this afternoon when I return." and with that he stomped down the hall to the front doors and then he was gone without even seeing his startled son in the hallway.

The boy was confused, this was one of the more serious arguments they'd had in awhile and he would have been elated by their turmoil except for the implication that something serious happened that had to do with his Uncle Luther. The boy put on his innocent face and went into the parlor to find out what happened from his mother.

The boy stepped into the room and saw his mother standing by the window. As he approached he could see she was still angry, her face was flushed and she glared angrily down at his father's car as it pulled away. He'd never seen her like that and oddly his respect for her rose. She was more real to him at this moment than she'd ever been. "Mom? Did something happen to Uncle Luther?"

Without looking at him she answered, her voice a low growl that would have scared him if he'd been just any other child. "I don't know." Then she turned toward him, a look of determination on her face. She took him by the hand and all but dragged him out the door, "But we're going to find out!"

Mother rarely drove anywhere herself so to the boy this was a treat. She allowed him to sit in the front seat with her which also was unprecedented. As they sped through the streets leaving all the other cars in their wake the boy felt his excitement grow and he looked upon his mother with new eyes. He thought perhaps his uncle was right about her, she was special, just a different kind of special. There was a grim determination on her face as she took corners without slowing down and every red light was a cacophony of screeching tires and honking horns. He might have let that mouse live a little longer if he'd known how thrilling this day was going to be.

He had no idea where they were going and all his mother would say was they were going to see Uncle Luther. The boy had no idea where Uncle Luther lived, they had never went to visit him before but as his mother turned the car onto a bridge the boy began to have misgivings, he didn't think they were going to where Uncle Luther lived at all. They passed through a tall iron gate and approached a dull grey building and over it's main doors the boy read the words… Arkham Asylum. The boy wondered, _why in the world would Uncle Luther be there?_

The inside of the building was just as unappealing as the outside. While his mother demanded to see her brother the boy took a look around. Everything about this place seemed to be grey and dead. The furniture, the walls, the tiled floors, all grey and lifeless. Even the people that worked there, the doctors and nurses' white uniforms seemed dull and their faces seemed haunted somehow. The boy didn't like it here, it was like this wasn't a real place, it was a place where nightmares came from.

Finally his mother seemed to be making some headway as a doctor came and led them to an elevator. Once inside the boy's mother asked the doctor about her brother's condition and the doctor used words the boy wasn't entirely sure he knew the meaning of like catatonic, minimal brain-wave function and sporadic moments of ambiguity. He thought that his mother knew the meaning of the words though, because when she heard them she went as white as the doctor's coat.

When the elevator stopped the doctor led them down another grey hallway and stopped at a door at the end. The room had a large window and the boy could see from the hallway that there was someone in the bed inside but it didn't look at all like Uncle Luther. His mother made him stay outside while she went in to see her brother and the boy resigned himself to the fact that the person in the hospital bed was indeed his uncle.

He didn't seem real, the man in the hospital bed. His uncle was tall and strong and that man was so thin and wasted and… grey. The boy wondered; _what did this place do to him? _His mother held her brother's hand and wiped a tear away. She said something to him then but the boy couldn't hear it. When she returned to the hallway her eyes were red and puffy and she demanded the doctor tell her the circumstances that lead to her brother's condition but the doctor didn't seem to want to tell her.

As they argued the boy slipped into his uncle's room. He walked over to the bed and like his mother, held his uncle's hand. While he gazed at this familiar stranger, this shadow of the man he knew he strained to hear the conversation outside the room. He couldn't hear everything the doctor said but he could hear his mother very clearly because she didn't seem to like what the doctor was telling her. The boy heard his mother say, "My brother didn't murder anybody!" and "Who are these neighbors of theirs that found him, what did they do to him?" and "I don't care about overwhelming evidence!" Finally she collapsed into a crying fit and the doctor did his best to comfort her. The boy was about to leave and be the dutiful son when a claw-like hand grabbed him by the arm.

His Uncle Luther was awake and he pulled the boy toward him. His familiar brown eyes now were wide and maniacal and a string of drool hung from his mouth and flopped onto the boy's arm when he spoke, "The girl! The girl! The girl!" For the first time in his young life the boy felt real fear and he pulled and yanked at his captured arm until finally he was free of his uncle's frantic grip but his uncle was not yet finished as he clawed his way toward the boy like a demented animal all the while repeating his chant, "The girl! The girl! The girl!" Then suddenly he collapsed onto the bed, unconscious. The boy, panting with fright looked down at his arm and saw three parallel lines of blood where his uncle's fingernails scratched him. He stared at those lines of blood for a long time until his mother came and took him away from that awful place.

The ride back home was much less thrilling even if he still sat in the front seat with his mother. She drove slowly this time and said nothing which was fine with him, he didn't feel much like talking. He was still trying to make sense of the day's events but they all seemed so unreal and disconnected. When they pulled up into their driveway and his mother parked the car the boy moved to get out but his mother grabbed him by the same arm his uncle had earlier. Startled he looked up at her and swore if she began chanting 'The girl!' he would run screaming from the car.

She didn't though, all she wanted was to talk to him, to warn him. She said they would be going to a funeral this afternoon, a funeral for his old retired nanny, Mrs Tully and her husband. She said that she wanted him to hear from her the horrible accusations that would be made by people so that he could be prepared for them. She said that people thought it was his Uncle Luther that killed his nanny and her husband… He thought that he should be horrified, but he wasn't. He wasn't even sorry that Mrs. Tully was dead in spite of the years she'd spent taking care of him. He wasn't even overly surprised that his Uncle Luther was accused of their murder. A sort of numbness seemed to creep over him and he couldn't even bring himself to feign astonishment, or disgust or whatever his mother would expect his reaction to be.

All the boy could think of when his mother finally told him the truth was that all the disconnected things in his life lately seemed to suddenly click into place.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Goddess**

Preque

**_Awakening_**

_Part Three_

_And you, my father, there on the sad height,_

_Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray,_

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

_Dylan Thomas_

_Gotham City, _

_The Graveyard_

Upon the hill the boy stood unmoving, two red roses in his hand. The stone monument before him bore his parent's names but there was no sense of _them_ here upon this hill and yet he came here still, on this day, every year.

At home, in the mansion he saw them everywhere, in pictures, in the books they read, the floors they walked upon, the rooms in which they lived. They were with him every day of his life, haunting him and they would not leave and he didn't want them to, he needed them still. He needed that constant reminder; for when a memory bubbled up from the place in his mind where it hid he could live in that moment and for the briefest instant he could believe they still lived. He needed that, he needed to live in the past, he couldn't let them go and he didn't think there would ever be a time when he could really let them go.

But here wasn't home, they were not here, not really. Their graves were here and their bodies buried within their caskets, he knew that but that was not them and that made this place real, more real to him than his home. Real and dismal and without the illusions and the ghosts of what was and what could have been. Perhaps he was old enough now to finally understand that he needed this too. He needed to be free of the memories just for this moment and embrace the truth: They would never be with him again, they were lost to him forever no matter how hard he held on to them and tried to lose reality within his memories.

Admitting what was real wasn't the same as letting them go. In hanging on to their memories he was living in the past but he could fathom no future for himself because he could not let go of the rage at the senselessness of it all. A pointless useless tragedy that he lived with every day and he stubbornly refused to let that go in spite of what the people closest to him wished.

Sometimes the rage was overwhelming and he didn't know if he could contain it. It wasn't only his own loss that he raged against but the loss of two good and decent people who were only trying to make the world a better place. Now it will never be known what they could have accomplished had they lived. Deep inside the boy did not feel that he could or even if he should be the one to carry on their legacy. He didn't think he could be good and decent like them, not now, maybe before, but not now. He was too angry to think of the future and his place in it. He was heir to a great empire, master of an uncountable wealth but he felt more like a slave to it, to his name, to his family's legacy. An empty name, an empty mansion, an empty life. His family's legacy meant nothing to him now without the people that had been it's heart. To the boy it was only a chain that kept him bound here; bound to an existence without meaning. A life without purpose. These were the grim thoughts that crept through his mind as he stood over their graves on this day, the same day, every year.

Behind him at the base of the hill on which he stood people had gathered. He turned and saw figures garbed in black, strangers in mourning, their eyes to the ground, gathered around two open graves; they did not see him standing alone upon the hill. He gazed down on them and remembered two caskets lowered into the graves at the very place which he stood today. He could hear the slow monotone of the priest under the wind trying to offer comfort to those around him and the boy turned away, it had been several years now and comfort still eluded him.

The boy knelt and placed the flowers at the base of the monument to his parents and stayed thus for several minutes as if in prayer. But it wasn't prayer, he wasn't talking to God; if God cared his parents would not have been taken from him. His silent words were more akin to a vow than a prayer. The same words that echoed in his mind every time he came here, a cumulation of all the loss and rage he felt; a desire for one thing and one thing only; revenge… _I will avenge you, I will find who did this and I will make him pay. I will stop the evil that took you from me. Somehow I will find a way and I will avenge you!_

When he rose, his silent and fervent declaration complete, a single tear fell that he angrily swept away. He cried less every time he came here but it wasn't that the grief was growing dimmer, it was because a stoic and cold rigidity was solidifying within him, preventing childish tears, preventing childhood itself because that too was buried under his feet with his parents. The boy that was or would have been died with them in that cold dark alley in the city. All that boy was now was a shade that ran laughing through the halls of his manor, a ghost of a happier time that, along with his parents, was alive only in his memories.

With his yearly ritual completed, the boy turned from the monument and descended the hill upon which it stood. He walked back toward his sprawling estate that bordered the cemetery, head down, mired in a dismal brooding, a melancholy that would linger because that too was part of his yearly ritual, a part of him, now and forever.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

_The Graveyard, Continued..._

Her parents weren't sure about attending the funeral after the ordeal the child went through only a few days ago but the little girl wanted to come. She told her parents that she wanted to say goodbye the way normal people did and she wanted so much to be normal. But there was more to it than that and she had no real way of explaining it to her parents.

The link she had shared with the deceased couple had faded, all the distinct memories were gone and only the emotions remained. She looked around at the people here that she shouldn't know but they all seemed so familiar to her and she knew it was because they were people that knew them. She didn't know their names or recognize their faces but when she closed her eyes and let down her internal walls just a little bit she could almost remember the emotions they stirred in the memories the girl shared with the dead couple.

After the horror of their deaths and the threat of their killer was over the little girl tried to sort through what she had experienced and only one thing remained unfinished. The little girl did not want to tell her parent the real reason why she had to be here today. She didn't really have the words to make them understand that being here was as important to herself as it was to the two people that they came here to mourn.

* * *

The limo took his silent family to the graveyard. The numbness he had felt when his mother told him what to expect this afternoon still lingered and he didn't think anything, not even his secret joy could snap him out of it. His pets, his nanny, his uncle, his mother, they were all connected, each a segment in the continuing story that was this boy's life. The numbness in his mind dampened the turmoil he knew he should be feeling and he was able to think with a clarity he had never felt before.

With that new-found clarity the boy began to work things out… She feared him, Mrs. Tully, his nanny, the woman they would bury today. She knew his secret and now she was dead along with her husband. His Uncle Luther, his mother's brother and the only person in the world the boy truly respected was accused of killing them. Deep inside the boy began to believe that his Uncle Luther did indeed kill his former nanny and if he did the boy wondered… _did he do it for me?_

His mother still refused to believe her own brother was capable of such terrible things but the boy understood his uncle, better than his mother did, apparently. He recalled the last time his uncle spoke to him: He said they were the same, that they saw the world differently than other people, that they were special. His uncle knew his secret but what's more his uncle knew him because they _were_ the same, they _were_ special. The more the boy thought about that last conversation the more he believed it was his uncle's way of saying goodbye. He had mentioned that he had made a mistake and that his world was shrinking. His Uncle Luther knew something was going to happen, and that he was never going to come back.

The boy looked down at his arm, at the scratches. He did that, his tall, strong uncle had done that to him when he grabbed the boy's arm in that terrible place, that asylum. Something horrible had happened to his uncle that robbed him of who he was. The boy didn't care that his uncle killed two innocent people, if they were truly innocent. The boy didn't mourn them, he was incapable of mourning them. His uncle was different though, he was special and he was the only person in the world who understood the boy and now he was a wasted drooling shadow of the man he was… Now the boy could feel the numbness fade, it gave way to something new, something he had never really experienced before; anger.


	5. Chapter 5

The girl's eyes were closed but she could feel the cloud cover the sun and rob it's warmth from the world. She could also feel the sorrow that surrounded her. The people they buried today were old and they had lived long lives but they had many happy years left and like the sun's warmth a dark and sinister cloud had robbed them of it.

She had lowered her mental barrier, only slightly so she could share in the sorrow of those around her. It was sad and heartbreaking but it was cleansing too. Like the two people that had died and gone over to something else, some other existence, the people left behind would move on as well; not to another existence but the same one, only… forever changed.

The real reason the girl was there today, the reason she couldn't find words to explain to her parents, was penance. Her grief and sorrow for the people that died was strong, but so was her guilt: She had used their deaths to harm another. It didn't matter that it may have been justified… Yes, he was evil. Yes, he would have killed her and her mother and most likely many others if she hadn't stopped him, but… was she any better than he was?

The little girl's empathic ability gave her an insight into morality that far exceeded the normal development of a child her age. The concepts of right and wrong were easily understood by a child, even as young as she was in an environment that was moral and stable. Even the more abstract notion of a punishment fitting a misdeed could be grasped by a normal seven year old. But the emotions the girl was exposed to every minute of every day gave her a unique perception into the causes and consequences of human behaviour.

Even the slightest transgression could have long term effects: Something as trivial as overlooking someone who desperately wants to be noticed, to a word meant in jest but spoken at the wrong time could have disastrous consequences to a fragile psyche. The girl knew the human emotional turmoil that surrounded her intimately, she lived with it constantly before she learned how to keep it at bay. As young as she was she understood better than most adults the true effects our words and actions have on one another in the world just under the surface.

Consciously the little girl understood that her transgression was infinitely more serious than a word spoken out of turn. Unconsciously she struggled with the complexities of morality. If she had been a normal child without the gifts she had been born with and faced with the same homicidal maniac and managed to stop him by simply killing him, would that have been better? Would that have been more humane than what she did to his mind? She wilfully and purposely invaded the mind of another and caused a great amount of harm. She may have been justified because her life was in danger but did she go too far? She remembered the power she felt in that moment when she tore his mind to ribbons and it scared her. It scared her because she was capable of it, it scared her because once she started it she couldn't control or stop it but what scared her most of all was that on some level deep inside, she didn't want to stop it because… she liked it; she liked the sense of power the act gave her. That was why the little girl felt that she was no better than the killer was. After everything she understood about right and wrong and emotional consequences she still had the capacity to ruin someone so completely and feel justified in the doing. Every moral fiber in her screamed that it was wrong. That she was more than abnormal because of her gift, that she had the potential to become just as devastating a monster as the creature she so utterly destroyed.

That was why she felt she needed to be there on this day. She needed to feel the sorrow, she needed to reconnect with the world and she needed, even in this small measure, to pay for her crime.

So, she stood at the gravesite with her parents, eyes closed, mind open, allowing herself to feel the pain of grief with the others around her. Trying in this small way to get back some of the innocence she had lost. She had promised herself that she would never use her ability that way again because she couldn't bear becoming a monster and she couldn't bear seeing the look of fear in the eyes of her mother when she looked at her.

Her eyes were still closed as the cloud passed by but no sooner had the sun returned to share it's warmth with the world again did the child feel the cold prickling sensation of anger. She opened her eyes and scanned the faces around her but she didn't see one that mirrored the fury she detected.

* * *

The boy glumly followed his parents through the cemetery, walking between headstones and over grassy graves: The long dead and mostly forgotten. There were people ahead but they didn't notice the brooding family approach, their heads were bent in their grief, listening to the tired drone of the priest standing before them. The boy dragged his feet, he didn't want to be there.

His family took their place behind the cluster of people but his father took the boy by his shoulders and made him stand before him so he could see the graves and all the people gathered around them. The boy didn't even pretend grief, he wouldn't know how even if he wanted to and he didn't want to. He didn't care about his nanny, she didn't care about him, she was afraid of him. Him, just a powerless little boy. No, she didn't care, or know him, not like his uncle did.

His uncle would be better off dead. Instead he was strapped to a bed in an asylum, either howling and frothing at the mouth or just laying there… staring with his dark brown eyes. The boy's uncle and his hideous condition weighed heavy on his mind since he saw him earlier that day. He replayed the events of the morning over and over. What could have happened to Uncle Luther that reduced him to that weak, quivering mess he saw. And his voice, his strong resonant voice had turned into a weedy whine that repeated the same thing over and over again. What did it mean?

The priest finished his droning and the people began to move around and talk quietly among themselves. His father turned and spoke to someone and his mother stood silent, lost in her own world, at his side. The boy too was lost to his own ruminations, trying to decipher the meaning of the words his mindless uncle had cryptically cried out: "The girl!… The Girl!…THE GIRL!" Then the boy looked up and when he did that last piece of the puzzle fell into place.


	6. Chapter 6

The anger the girl could feel was like being pushed against an ice cold bed of nails. She wanted to raise her internal barrier and protect herself but she was afraid she would lose the direction it was coming from. She glanced around at all the sad and despondent faces around her, then she found it. Across the twin open graves, glaring at her with such hatred that it caused her to shiver under the warm sun, was a boy. When their eyes met they locked onto each other and neither could pull their gaze away. He was only a few years older than her with blond hair like the woman behind him but there was a capacity for hate in his pale eyes that truly scared her.

When the boy looked at her, the only 'girl' here he could see recognition in her eyes and he saw fear. She was small, just a little thing, years younger than himself and yet there was something about her that was different. Perhaps she was special too, the boy thought, but that wouldn't save her if she was the one that did something to his Uncle.

Suddenly there was a commotion. His mother was shouting at the couple standing beside the girl. She was pushing people out of her way, trying to get to them all the time yelling, "You! It was you! What did you do to him!? What did you do to my brother?!" The boy's father tried to get in front of her and stop her from reaching them but the woman had a maniacal look on her face, not unlike her brother now lost within the bowels of Arkham, and she had a strength to match as she dragged the boy's father with her. People were shouting now and some were crying and during the upheaval the boy lost sight of the girl… she disappeared.

* * *

She ran crying toward the trees. She had let her walls down and her mind open to punish herself but then she felt him, that boy so full of anger and hate and all directed at her. At first she thought that she deserved it, that it was part of the penance she had resolved to endure. She didn't know why he hated her so, she had never met him before but she took in his hatred, his malice and although it was nauseating and distressing, she let the cold emotion wash over her.

Then the woman with him, his mother, snapped. Almost like an audible crack in the girl's mind and it hurt her, it actually hurt her. She didn't know what to do, everyone was in an uproar and with her barrier down she was that much more susceptible to the scattered and chaotic emotions that suddenly erupted around her. So she ran. She had to get away, she had to re-establish her walls, she had to be alone.

The woods ahead offered a place to hide, a place far away from the commotion behind her. When she reached the tree-line she slowed her pace and hid inside the small forest. If this had happened before she met Sobu and Sofu and learned how to push the emotions away she would have been at the mercy of the chaotic sensations she had just fled. But before she had met Senji and Misheru her parents would never have allowed her to come to a funeral in the first place. She had freedom now and she cherished it but the girl remembered how it was before, how frenzied her world was and those memories came flooding back as the rush of sensation washed over her lowered barriers. Finally alone she collapsed on the damp ground and began her chant: _I am a mountain, I am a mountain surrounded by the sea, the waves crash around me but they cannot touch me. I am a mountain, and the waves cannot reach me. _Her mind rose above the tumult and through her meditative chant she reconstructed her internal walls just as Sobu Misheru taught her and finally her mind began to calm.

* * *

The small wooded area hid the cemetery from his mansion's view, though he didn't need to see this place to know it was here, so close to home. When he reached the bottom of the hill that bore the monument to his parents and turned in the direction of the dirt road that would lead him back to his manor something caught his eye. Movement in the trees that grew along the road that bordered the graveyard. He stopped his progress and peered into the small wood, he heard something and then he spotted movement again. A few steps closer brought her into view, it was a girl, several years younger than himself, half hidden behind the trees and she sat there rocking herself and whispering, her eyes were closed but tears streaked her face.

She was so tiny in the young man's eyes and that made her seem younger than she actually was but when she looked up at his approach he could see something in her large almond eyes he couldn't explain. She seemed to see deep inside of him with so penetrating a gaze it took him aback and he paused, unsure of what to do. It was strange but it seemed suddenly as he met her gaze that they were reversed, that she, not he, was the elder. _An old soul_, that's what Alfred, his surrogate father would say, an old soul and haunted.

Tears still streaked her face but she wasn't crying anymore. She felt him approach and looked up to see a tall young man with pale eyes and dark ruffled hair and through force of habit she scanned him. It was a relief to concentrate on only one mind after the tumult she had just left behind. Even with her walls up again she could feel the intense sorrow that dominated inside him but there was so much more to this young man; there was a depth to him that was unfathomable. With her barriers up she could only skim the surface of it but she could detect an unfocused anger and an inward focused guilt and a pervasive sense of melancholy about this young man. His was a tortured soul and she felt for him; for most of her young life she felt tortured as well. But above all that and focused directly on her there was an innate curiosity and a deep sense of compassion.

Regaining his composure he took a step forward tentatively, he didn't want to frighten her, "Are you hurt?" She shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off him. He took another step, "Are you lost?"

"No," She said as she stood up, her dark blue dress rumpled and dirty from the ground, "but you are."

He opened his mouth to explain that he wasn't, that he lived just across the field, but from her eyes and the look on her face he knew her statement had nothing to do with geography. He was confused, he didn't know what to say to so cryptic a response. _What a strange little girl._

She came to a conclusion about him as she watched him flounder with her words; she liked him. There was something comforting about this young man, she felt safe here in the unfamiliar woods with him. In her young life she could count the number of people she truly felt safe with on one hand and to feel that way about a stranger was profound and unexplainable.

Until the last few months the girl's ability to sense the emotions of others had interfered with her ability to understand her own. But now with her new-found control she was developing a sense of intuition about things and people. It was based on her ability but it went deeper than that. It felt as if she was on the very edge of something truly miraculous but also something overwhelming and scary. And at this moment she felt it for the first time more acutely than ever before: This young man before her was important, more important than anyone she had ever met before. She sensed that he had a purpose: That he could achieve something significant and far reaching, something that could change the world and it was something that only he could do. In that small quiet forest on the edge of a graveyard the little girl sensed… his destiny.

She smiled and took a step toward him, he could see it in her eyes, still wise like that of an old soul, but there was something else as well, there was… trust. Then the expression on her face changed. She looked sharply away, back toward the cemetery as if responding to a call that only she could hear. When she looked back at him the 'old soul' was gone and she was just a scared little girl.

She began to back away from him and away from the direction of her frightened look. Quite unexpectedly a hot burning emotion bubbled up inside of him: He wanted to help this strange little girl, he wanted to protect her from the ghosts or whatever it was that haunted her. As she slowly retreated, deeper into the woods he took another tentative step toward her, he wasn't sure if it was him she was suddenly afraid of or something else, "What is it? What are you afraid of?" He said but she continued to back away.

"I - I have to go." she said in a small frightened voice. The little girl had heard her mother's silent warning. _They've found us! Run and hide baby, run and hide and we'll come find you! _She reached out with her unique mind and she felt them, many of them searching for her. Men in dark suits in dark cars, the men that guarded her and her family in the halls of those terrible places with the doctors and their tests. They frightened her more than the madman that invaded her home because all he could do to her was kill her, the doctors threatened something worse.

"I can help…"

She looked back at him sharply, "No!" She could feel a selfless protectiveness rise within him and she wanted to run to him. Instead she backed away, "I-I can make my way" she said, but her voice was small and unsure. She wanted to let him protect her but she feared for him. They were coming for her and whatever it was she felt this young man was destined to do he wasn't ready for it yet and she couldn't endanger him before that destiny was realized. And she didn't think he could help her anyway, not from this. Just then a loud noise invaded the small quiet forest and a dark helicopter flew low over them. The young man looked up to see it pass by and when he looked back at the girl, she was gone.

* * *

She was running again, this time from a greater danger. They were here to take her back to the labs and the doctors and the experiments. That was why they moved around so much before they settled here. She could barely remember that time in her young life, so deeply enveloped in her own inner turmoil then, but she did remember leaving a home, leaving everything behind. Then the small family came here to Gotham, a scary city to the young troubled girl but here she found Sobu and Sofu, and hope. She was finally happy, she was learning to control her ability, she had just started to believe she could live a normal life, she had dreams of going to school, of having friends. She began to cry again because she realized that was never going to happen. She would never be normal and now she was alone, lost in the woods and they were chasing her.

* * *

_Why would she run unless she was guilty, _the boy thought as he ran through the forest like a wild animal, like a wild hunting animal. He loved it, something was happening to him in this dark wood as he hunted his prey, something wonderful. He felt powerful, like a predator, strong and confident and free; like his uncle used to be. He would catch her and when he did he would find out what she did to his uncle and then he would make her pay.

The boy didn't understand the rage that overtook him when he first saw the girl at the gravesite. He didn't understand that that which made him special in his uncle's eyes also numbed his emotions, and enhanced his apathy but it could also allow a seething anger to take control when the world he knew, the world he counted on was threatened. His Uncle Luther, the only person that 'got' him, the only person who 'knew' him was now nothing more than a bag of slobbering bones and somehow it was her, the girl: It was all her fault. His vision blurred then became red with a towering rage. Oh! He Would Find Her!

* * *

Her tears blinded her as she ran. The forest grew thicker and darker, and still she stumbled on sobbing until she fell, twisting her ankle. She sat for a moment, her foot throbbing but she choked back her tears, she had to be quiet now or they would find her.

She tentatively scanned the area around her, she had to find out how close they were. She could feel them rumbling on the edge of her awareness but there was something else much closer. She felt that cold anger again, that boy at the funeral. She saw him through the trees, he was searching for her too. She tried to get up but her ankle protested and it was all she could do not to cry out. She gritted her teeth and stood, she had to get as far away as she could. She tried to walk and managed to limp a few steps but she fell again and when she did the angry boy heard her. She was crying again and crawling along the uneven ground when he caught up to her.


	7. Chapter 7

The thrill of the chase gave way to the elation of finding his quarry. He found her weeping, creeping along the ground like a pathetic little mouse. He grabbed her by an ankle and she cried out but that just made him smile as he dragged her back toward him. He pulled out a long thin needle from his pocket, the same one he used on a small grey mouse that very morning, the same creature his uncle brought him the last time he'd seen him strong, like he was supposed to be. He looked down at the girl and wondered what would happen if he did the same to her as he did to the countless rodents before, would she die twitching and mewling like them? He was dying to find out.

He was twice her size and she had no hope of struggling free. He rolled her onto her back and straddled her small body, one knee on either side of her as she tried to squirm free. There was fierce look in her eyes as she grunted and fought and pummelled his chest with her tiny fists. She was still crying but oddly she made little noise. He caught her small hands in one of his own and brandished the needle with the other.

She didn't understand what he wanted from her, she didn't understand the cold anger he focused on her or why he wanted to hurt her so badly until he spoke… He brought the long silver needle close to her face and shouted, "It was you! Wasn't it?! Tell me what you did! Tell me what you did to my uncle!"

With wide terrified eyes she stared at the needle and the young but maniacal face behind it and she knew: His uncle was that creature, that murdering monster she stopped in her own home. Then she understood…

This was her penance, this was what she deserved and she believed that this fate was better than the one that awaited her at the edges of the forest in the hands of the dark men and the doctors. She stopped struggling then and looked deep into the boy's angry eyes and resigned herself to her fate. "I did it." She said strangely calm, "I destroyed him so he can never hurt anyone else again."

The boy stared at her incredulous. She had stopped fighting him, she didn't cry or beg for mercy and she admitted it, she actually admitted that she turned his uncle into that pathetic waste he saw in the asylum. He looked down at her and he saw that she wasn't afraid anymore. "How?" He whispered. But she held her tongue and would not answer. "How!" He screamed in her face. He raised the needle like a knife but still she refused to reply. Then from somewhere behind them…

"Stop! Get away from her!" The girl looked over with sadness and saw the tall young man she had met only minutes before. She had felt him in the forest but she hoped he wouldn't find her. She didn't want him to become embroiled within the dangers of her young life. He was too important.

"Get away!" The angry boy yelled over his shoulder at the tall young man that appeared as if from nowhere. "This is none of your business!" Then he turned back to the girl he had captured and raised the hand that held his weapon. She knew the blow was coming, that he would stab her with that long needle; she grew afraid again and closed her eyes.

Without thinking or hesitating the young man growled. "I'm making it my business!" and with an uncanny swiftness he raced toward them and threw himself at the boy that threatened the little girl. The tackle sent them both sprawling and rolling on the forest floor. The girl sat up and watched them, horrified for her young saviour as they struggled. The young man was older and bigger than the other but the fair-haired angry boy fought with a savagery that more than made up for his disadvantage in size and… he still had his weapon.

As she watched the boys fight the little girl could feel the dark men getting closer and briefly she thought of running away again. She tried to stand and succeeded this time and turned from the struggle toward the dark forest but she couldn't do it, she couldn't leave him while he fought for her. She bent and picked up a broken tree-branch, it was big and heavy in her small hands but she dragged it limping toward the two boys struggling amidst the dirt and dead leaves of the forest floor.

The boy didn't know who this tall stranger was but his interference only intensified the red rage that encompassed him. He fought viciously, his own hands a blur of motion as he pummelled and stabbed with his thin dart at the eyes of his attacker but blow after blow was either absorbed or deflected by this new opponent who fought as fiercely as he did. As they rolled and struggled the fair-haired and frenzied boy grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in the eyes of his enemy and was pleased with his resulting blindness. He saw his chance then and with a cry of victory he brought down the long thin dart aimed for his adversary's eyes but it was blocked as the other boy brought his hand up to shield his face. The little girl gasped with his pain and the dark-haired boy cried out as the needle skewered the palm of his hand, impaling it. Before the maniacal boy could pull his weapon free for another blow however, a heavy tree-branch came crashing down upon the side of his head.

It was a glancing blow, more annoyance than anything else; the girl just didn't have the strength to do more but it was all that was needed. When the fair-haired boy glared menacingly at the girl the boy beneath him saw _his_ chance.. His hand throbbing and his eyes full of dirt the young man threw a sweeping punch with his undamaged fist that landed square on the jaw of his maniacal enemy and sent him sprawling. Dazed but unwilling to give up the murderous boy clawed forward, toward the girl this time.

She saw him coming but before she could raise her heavy weapon her young saviour was there. The top of his face covered with dirt, his hair dishevelled, his eyes watering and his hand bleeding but he stood before her and she knew he would never let that crazy, angry boy come near her.

On his hands and knees the furious boy looked up into the eyes of his adversary and saw a determined resolve. The tall young man took hold of the long needle that still impaled his hand, pulled it out and tossed it aside all the while staring down at the boy beneath him with pale eyes that shined through the dirt that surrounded them. The boy on the ground, enraged at this defeat slowly stood up and glared back at this new enemy. He wanted to tear at those eyes, he wanted to pummel that face but as he was about to lunge his uncle's words drifted into his mind… _"There are more of them than there are of you and you have to be smarter than them to survive… Don't take any chances, that was my mistake…" _The boy hesitated, standing now he took a step back.

Then all three heard the deafening sound of a helicopter and felt the wind it created rustle the trees just below it. The girl and her protector then heard something else, the sound of hurried footsteps as the boy they had just fought ran away.

The little girl could feel them closing in on her and as the chopper moved away they could both hear them in the forest; they were moving in. The young man sunk down on one knee and the girl looked sadly into his eyes, "I'm so sorry." Then she reached out and touched his damaged hand and when she did she felt his pain more acutely then before and it wasn't just his hand, there was pain inside him that went so much deeper. She wished she could take his pain away but she couldn't, the best she could do was share it with him: She held his injured hand, closed her eyes and opened her mind and felt his aching sorrow. She sobbed with the depth of his grief and a single tear rolled down her dirty cheek. She could also feel his uncertainty, a sense of being lost that she felt herself. That at least she could try to help him with, she had to tell this brave young man that there was more out in the world for him, with the brief time she had, she had to try and make him understand. When she opened her eyes again he was looking intently at her, he began to say something but words failed him and his eyes were full but tears would not fall.

They both looked up when they heard noises all around them, there were men in the forest, they could see their shadows now. The little girl whispered, "I have to tell you… I know you are sad but you can't let it stop you. There is something that you have to do, it's important. You have a purpose, you just have to find it. You have to make your own way."

"Who are you?"

She didn't answer his question, and her small expressive face became serious as the sounds of the men behind them grew louder. She had little time and she couldn't leave without making sure he wouldn't give in to his despair, it was the most important thing to her at that moment. "You have to keep trying!"

He was at a loss as he looked into the face of this little girl and marvelled at her sincerity but he wasn't sure if he understood her words. Behind the little girl the men in dark suits stalked forward. He asked again, "Tell me, who you are?"

She heard the men behind her and shook the injured hand she still held. she whispered urgently, "Promise me you won't give up! Promise me you will find your way!"

He winced with the pain and replied, "I-I promise! Only, please, just tell me your name…"

Then the dark men were upon them. The young man stood, ready to defend the child again but she whispered, "No, don't. You can't protect me from them." As they approached they didn't even spare the young man a glance, they were so intent on securing the girl. She didn't bother to look as two walked up behind her and reached out to take her. The little girl kept her eyes on the young man as she was picked up and carried away. As she let go his hand she smiled sadly and quietly said, "Anna. My name is Anna."

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning…

_Billy Corgan, _

_The Smashing Pumpkins_


End file.
